I shoved Mrs. Thorne away.
It wasn't a gentle push. It was a dismissal. She stumbled back, her heels catching on the plush runner of the landing, and she had to grab the banister to keep from falling.
The shock on her face was almost comical. For twenty years, she had been the sun around which my miserable little planet revolved. She couldn't comprehend that gravity had shifted.
"You..." she sputtered, clutching her wrist where my fingers had left red marks. "You assaulted me!"
"I defended myself," I said, turning my back on her. "There's a legal difference. Ask your lawyers."
I didn't wait for a retort. I marched down the hallway to my old room—the guest suite I had woken up in just yesterday morning. The air in the corridor still smelled faintly of the acrid smoke from the dress I h
